A Wintry Drum II

A Wintry Drum II

1 of the series of FOUR A Wintry Drum II, to be seen in ARTWORKS on my Page .
I worked through the winter near my home , obsessed by the ‘bad’ weather and how this affected the land.The moment before winter turns into spring . The life still resonant in abandoned farmhouses . The hope .

All catches alight
At the spread of spring:
Birds crazed with flight
Branches that fling
Leaves up to the light-
Every one thing,
Shape, colour and voice,
Cries out , Rejoice!
A drum taps : a wintry drum.
Gull,grass and girl
In air,earth and bed
Join the long whirl
Of all the resurrected,
Gather up and hurl
Far out beyond the dead
What life they can control-
All runs back to the whole.
A drum taps : a wintry drum.
What beasts now hesitate
Clothed in cloudless air,
In whom desire stands straight?
What ploughman halts his pair
To kick a broken plate
Or coin turned up by the share?
What lovers worry much
That a ghost bids them touch?
A drum taps : a wintry drum.
Let the wheel spin out,
Till all created things
With shout and answering shout
Cast off rememberings;
Till centuries of springs
And all their buried men
Stand on the earth again.
A drum taps : a wintry drum.
Philip Larkin